1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to wireless telecommunication, navigation, and geocoding. More particularly, it relates to location based services, and more particularly to navigation using location based services.
2. Background of the Related Art
When using a directions or navigation application, the destination for a route or point of interest search must be accurate to be useful. However many addresses within a city or region may be very similar and occasionally they can only be differentiated by postal codes, information that may not be available to the user. In addition users may only know the street name, or may have the number of the building incorrect. Once they have provided the information available to a mapping server, several addresses may be returned from which the user must select the correct one. Since the user may not be able to distinguish the correct one, they must either guess and take the chance of going far out of their way or give up. Even the most user friendly mapping server can't solve this problem if it must rely on providing only text information.
Products are conventionally available that provide basic geocoding functionality, e.g., TeleNav, Garmin, VZ Navigator, and Sprint Navigator. Web site products include maps.google.com; maps.yahoo.com; and maps.live.com.
However, with respect to existing applications, if an address doesn't have an exact match in the mapping server, the user is provided with a list of possible matches that resemble the entered information in some way. The conventional systems attempt to find close matches to help a user, but nothing more than a text list of addresses is provided to the user.
FIG. 9 shows conventional graphic user interface (GUI) designs for allowing a user to enter an address of interest, displaying results for that entered address, and displaying directions to that entered address.
In particular, as show in FIG. 9, a user is presented with a first graphic user interface (GUI) 910 for entering a city name and state name. Upon completion of the city name and state name, a user can choose the “select” option to proceed to the second GUI 920.
Second GUI 920 allows a user to enter additional information to complete the entry of an address of interest. Second GUI 920 allows a user to enter a street number and street name. As shown in GUI 920, many conventional systems allow a user to enter a partial street name, the partial street name is used to provide a user with a list of street names that may complete the partially entered address of interest. Upon completion of the street number and street name, a user choose the “select” option to proceed to the third GUI 930.
Third GUI 930 provides an indication to a user that the user's entered criteria for an address of interest results in multiple matches. The user is further given an indication that the user will be presented with a list of the multiple matches from which to select an address of interest for their route destination.
Fourth GUI 940 provides a textual list of multiple addresses to a user that match criteria entered in GUIs 910 and 920. A user selects a single address from the list of multiple addresses. Upon selection of a single street number and street name, a user can choose the “select” option to proceed to fifth GUI 950.
Following a list of multiple addresses given to a user that match criteria entered in GUIs 910 and 920, a fifth GUI 950 provides an indication that the current position of the user's navigation device is being determined. A progress bar is often used to indicate the amount of progress made toward determining a current position of a user's navigation device.
Sixth GUI 960 provides a user with a graphic view of their current position, often indicated with an icon of an automobile, and their address of interest, often indicated with an icon of a house. A calculated route is shown between the automobile icon and the house icon indicating a route that the user will be guided over.
Following a graphic view of a route from their current position and their address of interest, seventh GUI 970 provides a user with route guidance information indicating distances to turns, street names for turns, direction to turn, time traveled, estimated time of arrival, total distance, current location along a route, etc. Such information allows a user to easily navigate to their address of interest.
The disadvantage of the current technology is that a user searching for an address of interest may not have enough information to be able to properly choose which address from multiple returned addresses is correct. The multiple returned addresses given to a user lack any type of context with which a user can make an informed choice.
There is a need for an improved method by which a user is able to select an address of interest from a list of multiple returned addresses.